Keeping Secrets In The Past
by prettylittlepinklady
Summary: Aria and Ezra's children discover some newspaper articles from before they were born. As they learn more about their parents' past, their own secrets come to light and they must find who they can trust in the small town of Rosewood.
1. Newspaper Clippings

Abigail Fitz sat back on her heels and tilted her head to the side, trying to relieve the cramp in her neck from bending over a pile of books for so long. She had been kneeling on the hard wood floor of the attic for nearly an hour now, sorting through a bunch of old stuff that her parents kept up there.

"Did you find something, Abby?" Her younger sister, Brooklyn asked, turning away from the trunk she'd been searching through.

"No. I got a cramp from staying still, though." She said with a forced laugh. Brooklyn smiled sympathetically. Beside her, their brother, Elijah looked up, realizing that the girls were talking.

"Did they really have to keep all these books?" He asked, gesturing to the growing pile beside him as he sorted through a box.

"Clearly they had some sort of meaning to them." Brooklyn said. The three of them were in the midst of searching through the family's attic in search of information about their parents' past. Somewhere downstairs, the eldest of the Fitz children, Joshua was making sure their parents didn't come home.

"I guess but seriously, I reckon I've found at least two copies of nearly every book here." Elijah said, exaggerating the amount of books he'd actually found. Brooklyn rolled her eyes and turned back to the trunk, lifting out a big scrapbook.

"Hey, look at this." She pointed to the cover where a picture of their parents took up most of the space underneath the title 'Aria and Ezra - Year 1'.

"Seems like a good place to start." Abigail said, beginning to crawl over. She was about to open the book when they heard the unmistakable sound of the garage door opening and Joshua's footsteps could be heard running up the stairs.

"Guys, get moving! Mom and Dad are back!" He said, appearing in the doorway. The other three hurriedly put away everything they'd pulled out and grabbed the scrapbook, getting out just as they heard their parents come in from the garage.

"Go. I'll be down in a minute." Brooklyn hissed as she started towards her bedroom to hide the scrapbook. Abigail, Joshua and Elijah made their way downstairs to meet their parents in the kitchen and help unpack the groceries.

"Where's your sister?" Their father, Ezra asked noticing Brooklyn's absence.

"Coming. She was just finishing something, I think." Abigail said quickly and turned away as her mother raised an eyebrow questioningly. Aria Fitz knew that her children had not been doing homework while she and Ezra had been out. She knew they'd been watching TV or playing a game together. Luckily, Abigail was saved from further questioning by Brooklyn bursting in the door.

"Sorry, I just had to save my work. Oooh…chocolate, can we bake choc-chip cookies? Please, please, please?" She began to jump up and down excitedly as she waved the bag of chocolate drops in the air. Aria grinned and took the chocolate away from her daughter.

"Maybe. If you stop jumping like a grasshopper." She said with a laugh.

"Sorry. I just haven't had Dad's homemade choc-chip cookies in ages." Brooklyn threw her arm in the air dramatically, narrowly missing Joshua's head as he stood up from getting something from a grocery bag.

"Hey! Watch where you throw your arm, B." He said, ducking out of the way.

"Whoops." Abigail rolled her eyes at her sister's antics but she knew it was all a diversion to keep her parents from asking more about what they'd done while they were out.

"Oh, by the way, we're going out tonight. Hanna and Caleb are throwing a dinner party to celebrate Poppy's birthday." Ezra told his children who looked up excitedly. They loved going over to their Aunt Hanna and Uncle Caleb's place. It was a huge house, almost a mansion, that sat nestled in a clearing of the woods behind the main town of Rosewood. There was almost always somewhere new to explore and Hanna and Caleb's kids loved to show off their home to the other Rosewood children.

"Casual or fancy?" Abigail asked.

"In between. Why don't you wear that new dress of yours. It's fairly warm outside today and the weather is supposed to stay at an even temperature for a few days." Aria suggested, glad that her daughters had inherited a good sense of fashion. Her sons, on the other hand, were almost a hopeless case and she was always arguing with them to choose a better outfit. She blamed Ezra for their lack of fashion sense and the two had had several playful arguments on the matter over the years.

"Okay. Hey, B, let's go sort out dresses and stuff for you." Abigail turned to her sister with a meaningful look, careful not to let her parents see it.

"Umm…sure." It took Brooklyn a few seconds to understand what the look meant but a smile came onto her face when she did. The two girls rushed up the stairs and disappeared into Brooklyn's room, shutting and locking the door behind them. They could still hear their parents talking to the boys downstairs but knew that the boys would join them soon. Brooklyn rummaged under her bed for a moment before pulling the scrapbook out. Together, the girls sat on the floor and opened to the first page where another picture of their parents resided. This time it was one taken in the streets of Rosewood. Ezra had his arms over Aria's shoulders from behind her where she clung to them. Both of them were smiling at the camera. They seemed just as happy then as they did now. The next several pages contained similar images of the two of them, sometimes joined by other friends or family. Just as they finally found a page with a newspaper clipping, there was a knock on the door. Brooklyn slammed the book shut and Abigail went over to the door.

"Who is it?" She called through the wood.

"Josh and Eli." She recognised Joshua's voice and unlocked the door, letting the boys in.

"What are Mom and Dad doing?" She asked as she made sure the door was locked again.

"Mom's making some sort of salad to take along tonight and Dad's grading papers in the study." Elijah said and Abigail nodded. The four of them sat down and Brooklyn opened the book back to the newspaper clipping and they all gasped as they read the heading 'Rosewood Teens Accused of Murder'. Below it was a picture of Aria and her high school friends standing together as the police questioned them. The four girls were covered in what looked like mud and were clearly distraught over something from the way they clung to each other. In the background, there was an ambulance parked near the church and you could just make out a gurney in the doorway of the building.

"Mom was involved in a murder investigation?" Elijah asked, the shock evident in his voice.

"Apparently. I wonder who died." Abigail mussed, scanning the rest of the article.

"Some girl named Alison. She was part of mom's group of friends in their freshman year of high school but disappeared at the end of the summer." Brooklyn said, reading a piece of paper that had apparently fallen out of the book. "Mom and her friends were on the top of the suspect list for ages but the girls kept coming up with other suspects so the police dropped the case after a few years and still no-one knows what happened to Alison."

"Wow. Sounds like some sort of reality TV show. Who would have thought that murder would happen in a sleepy town like Rosewood." Joshua said and the others nodded their agreement.

"It says here that the person who died was some guy named Ian. The girls claimed he was trying to frame them or something." Abigail said, pointing to a paragraph in the newspaper article. Elijah grabbed the book from the floor and began to flick through the pages but there were no more articles about the investigation.

"I wonder if there's any information on it at the library. They keep old newspapers, don't they?" He asked.

"Maybe. How about we head down there and check it out?" Joshua suggested.

"You guys go. Brooke and I have to actually sort out a dress for her or Mom and Dad will get suspicious." Abigail said and waved her hand at Brooklyn when she tried to argue.

"Good idea. If we find anything, we'll let you know and you guys can check it out another time." Joshua said as he and Elijah got up. They let themselves out of the room and it wasn't long before the girls heard Joshua's car start up and drive off. Turning her attention to Brooklyn's wardrobe, she ignored her sister's complaints and began to pull items of clothing out and threw them onto the bed.


	2. A Is Back

**A/N: I've been asked to provide the ages of the kids so I'll tell you here, I'll also tell you what I'm imagining they would look like:**

**Aria and Ezra's Children:**

_Brooklyn Layla Fitz (15): Chloe Grace Moretz_

_Abigail Harper Fitz (14): Georgie Henley_

_Joshua David Fitz (16): Logan Lerman_

_Elijah James Fitz (14): Chase Ellison_

**Spencer and Toby's Children:**

_Taya Marie Cavanaugh (15): Danielle Campbell_

_Victoria Grace Cavanaugh (14): Zoey Deutch_

_Jayden Scott Cavanaugh (13): Colin Ford_

**Emily and Maya's Children:**

_Charlotte Elaine St Germain-Fields (17): Peyton List_

_Kevin Tyler St Germain-Fields (15): Freddie Highmore_

**Hanna and Caleb's Children:**

_Poppy Mae Rivers (15): Ariel Winter_

_Levi Chase Rivers (16): Zachary Gordon_

_Blake Mitchell Rivers (14): Jake T. Austin_

**I know you haven't met some of the kids yet but they are all introduced in this chapter so I figured I'd put in their details here.**

* * *

Later that evening, the four Fitz children found themselves huddled in a corner at their Aunt Hanna's house, surrounded by people they barely knew.

"Did you find anything?" Brooklyn asked. It was the first time the girls had been able to talk to the boys without their parents hearing since they'd come back from the library.

"Yeah, there were a few papers with mentions of a murder investigation but we didn't read too much because of the time limit." Joshua said.

"Doesn't matter. Maybe after school on Monday we'll go past the library and check it out." Abigail suggested.

"Sounds good to me." Elijah agreed.

"Hey guys. How's it going?" Spencer and Toby's daughter, Taya came over and they fell silent.

"Hey Taya." Abigail said, greeting her cousin with a smile.

"Whatcha talking about?"

"Not much. Just waiting for Poppy to make an appearance. What's the bet she's done a runner?" Elijah said with a laugh. As much as Hanna and Caleb loved to spoil their daughter, she hated the limelight and was known for not showing up at the best of times. Taya laughed and as if on cue, Hanna appeared, her face almost as black as a storm.

"Poppy's not in her room." She said to Caleb who was standing near the five teens. All fie of them bit their lip and turned away to hide their laughter as they watched Caleb's face change to match his wife's.

"When I find that girl…" He let his sentence trail off and marched up the stairs, Hanna following quickly after him.

"What are you laughing at?" Aria asked, coming over and seeing her children in fits of laughter. Clearly she hadn't been in the room five seconds before.

"Poppy's run away again." Joshua told his mother who laughed too.

"Oh no. Where's Hanna?"

"Aunt Hanna and Uncle Caleb went upstairs." Taya told her and Aria smiled gratefully.

"Thanks, Taya. Maybe you should all be prepared to leave. If Poppy doesn't come home soon, this could end badly." She suggested before turning and disappearing up the stairs. Abigail looked at Brooklyn in alarm. They both knew what their Uncle could be like when he was angry. Thinking quickly, they motioned for the others to follow her and they hurried out into the garden where she pulled out her phone and scrolled through her contacts looking for Poppy's number. They waited in silence as the phone rang, Brooklyn putting it on speaker phone in the centre of their little circle

"Hello?"

"Poppy! Where are you? Your parents are about to go nuts." Brooklyn cried.

"I hate parties. I'm at the Grille." Poppy's voice told them she had no intention of coming home.

"Come on, Poppy. Don't make such a big deal about this. Just come home and make an appearance. That's all they want." Abigail begged and they heard Poppy sigh.

"Fine. But promise me we can just hide away in the yard once I've said hi."

"Sure. Just get here. Fast." Brooklyn said and they disconnected the call and Taya looked at her.

"You know she's not going to be allowed out of her parent's sight, yeah?"

"I know that but if it got her to come back, I would have promised anything. No one needs to see Uncle Caleb loose it again." Brooklyn explained.

"Oh. That makes sense. Should we go tell Aunt Hanna that Poppy's on her way?"

"I guess we should. Otherwise, she might cancel the party before she gets back. Let's go." Elijah led the way back into the house and he searched the sea of faces for his father.

"Dad! Where's Aunt Hanna?"

"Still upstairs. But you don't really want to go up there guys. Stay down here." Ezra told the five eager teens surrounding him.

"But we know where Poppy is." Abigail blurted out. Ezra raised an eyebrow at his eldest daughter but let it go.

"Fine. Go tell her. Just you two though. The rest of you stay down here. You don't need five of you to tell her where Poppy is." He said, pointing at Abigail and Brooklyn. Reluctantly Ethan, Joshua and Taya turned away and headed over to the food table while Brooklyn and Abigail sprinted up the stairs. It surprisingly didn't take long to find Hanna and they burst into the room where she was sitting with Caleb, tears in her eyes.

"Aunt Hanna, Poppy's on her way home. She was at the Grille when we talked to her." Brooklyn said, tentatively stepping forward. To her surprise, Hanna burst into even more tears. She frowned and looked at her sister in confusion.

"Girls, come out here for a minute." Caleb stood and led the girls out onto the balcony, shutting the sliding door behind them. He shoved a piece of paper at them and Abigail took it, carefully unfolding it.

Mr and Mrs Rivers,

If you wish to see your daughter again, you will follow my directions carefully. Your first instruction will arrive shortly.

-A

"A? Who is A?" Abigail asked, looking up at her Uncle.

"Someone who caused your mother and Hanna a lot of trouble when they were in high school. We thought A was gone but apparently they're back stronger than ever." Caleb sighed as he looked back into the room where Hanna was still crying.

"Do you want us to do anything?" Brooklyn asked.

"Could you ask your parents to send everyone home. But make sure Spencer and Emily stay behind with your mom." The girls nodded and hurried back into the room, past Hanna and back downstairs, looking for one of their parents. Eventually, they saw their father leaning against the wall making small talk with some guy.

"Dad!" Brooklyn ran over and tugged on her father's arm.

"Brooklyn, I'm talking. Wait for your turn, please." He said.

"But dad. It's important. It's a message from Uncle Caleb." Abigail said, having caught up with her sister. Ezra sighed and apologised to the man who shrugged and walked off.

"What is it?"

"Uncle Caleb wants you to ask everyone to leave except Aunt Spencer, Aunt Emily and Mom. He wants them to stay." Brooklyn explained.

"Ookaay." Ezra was confused.

"He wants to talk to them about someone called A." Abigail elaborated and watched as her father's eyes widened.

"Oh my god." Ezra moved away from them so he stood in the centre of the room and waved his hand in the air. "Excuse me! If I could have your attention for a moment. The hosts have apologised but they must cut the party short so if you could all start to pack up, I'm sure the hosts will give you something for your time. Oh, and Emily, Spencer, could I talk to you for a minute?" The party guests slowly began to gather their belongings and head out the door until only the three families were left.

"Why don't you kids go out into the garden? We'll be done with this in a while okay?" Ezra turned to the teens who nodded and made their way outside where they sat around in a circle. Among them was, of course Brooklyn, Abigail, Joshua and Elijah as well as Spencer's kids, Taya, Victoria and Jayden. Emily's adopted kids, Charlotte and Kevin were there as well as Hanna and Caleb's other children, Levi and Blake.

"What do you think they're talking about?" Victoria wondered.

"Well, when we went up to tell Aunt Hanna that Poppy was on her way home, she was crying and then Uncle Caleb showed us a note from some person called A." Brooklyn said.

"Who's A?" Kevin asked and Abigail shrugged.

"We don't know. The adults wouldn't tell us anymore." Charlotte sighed and rolled over so that she was on her stomach and pulled at the grass.

"Maybe this has something to do with that newspaper article." Elijah blurted out without thinking. Instantly he had all the kids' attention on him, his siblings glaring at him.

"What newspaper article?" Levi wanted to know.

"There's no harm in telling them. Their moms were involved too." Elijah reasoned to his siblings.

"I guess." Joshua sighed.

"Our moms were involved in what?" Jayden was eager to know more about what the Fitz children were discussing.

"A murder investigation. When they were in high school, all four of our moms were involved in a murder investigation." Brooklyn told them and every eye widened.

"No! In Rosewood?" Taya found it hard to believe.

"Wait, which mom am I thinking about here?" Kevin asked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Aunt Emily." Abigail said and he nodded. "And yes, here in Rosewood. We were surprised too."

"So what else do you guys know about this investigation?" Charlotte asked.

"Not much. We only found out about it today and we didn't have much time to do anything else about it." Joshua explained.

"But we do know one thing. Don't tell your parents that you know about this. They obviously kept it from us for a reason so until we know more, don't say anything, okay?" Abigail warned. All the kids nodded.

"Maybe we should setup like a chat group or something where we can talk about it in private." Brooklyn suggested.

"Yeah. I can set one up via Facebook when I get home." Taya said.

"Great. Hey, looks like our parents are finishing up. What say we head in and see if we can catch some snippets of the conversation." Kevin said, already standing up. The other kids followed suit and they all trapsed inside. Unfortunately though, the adults heard them coming and stopped talking.


	3. Library Research

On Monday, all the kids returned to school and the day seemed to drag on forever for the Fitz children who had set the plans to go to the library on the way home. Finally the bell rang and Joshua stood by his locker, waiting for his siblings to arrive.

"Hey, Josh. What's up?" Victoria saw him and came over.

"Not much, just waiting for my brother and sisters so we can head over to the library."

"Are you going to look up that investigation?"

"Yeah. Eli and I found a bunch of newspapers the other day with mentions of it but we didn't have time to really look into it."

"Cool. I might get Taya and Jay to see f we can find something in our attic tonight as well."

"That's a good idea actually. See if you can get Char and Levi to do the same at their places.

"Will do. Here comes Abby. See you later." Victoria waved and skipped off down the hall.

"Hey, what'd Vic want?" Abigail asked as she approached.

"Just saying that she's going to look through her attic tonight. See if she can find anything there about the investigation." Joshua explained.

"Oh. What about the attics at Aunt Emily's and Aunt Hanna's?"

"Vic said she'll talk to Char and Levi about that. God, how long does it take to get out of class?" He looked over his shoulder, hoping to see Brooklyn or Elijah heading over.

"No idea. B texted earlier and said that she might be out a bit late because she needed to talk to her teacher but I haven't heard anything from Eli."

"What about me?" Elijah came running up as she spoke and jumped on her from behind. Abigail let out a shriek and lurched towards Joshua who was doubled over laughing.

"Nothing. I was talking about you not to you." Abigail said with a glare at Joshua.

"Aw, come on Abby." Elijah pouted and Abigail finally let herself smile and found herself laughing as well.

"What's so funny?" Brooklyn arrived to find all three of her siblings in fits of laughter.

"Eli scared Abby." Joshua said, finally sobering up.

"That's easy to do." Brooklyn said with a laugh. Abigail shook her head and the four of them made their way out to Joshua's little blue Toyota Corolla and climbed in, Abigail calling shotgun. The drive wasn't very long and they soon found themselves sitting around a table with a dozen or so old newspapers scattered between them.

**_'Fifteen year old Rosewood teen goes missing.'_**

**_'Stone memorial found destroyed.'_**

**_'Rosewood fashion show ruined.'_**

The headlines stood out to them like a bright light in the dark as they searched deeper into their parents' past until Abigail's phone pierced the silence. Her face went red as she hurried to answer it.

"Hello?"

"Abigail, where are you? It's almost six." Her mother did not sound pleased that none of her children were home when they had agreed to be home by five-thirty.

"Sorry, mom. We got carried away."

"Well pack up whatever you're doing and come home please. Your father has made dinner for us all."

"We'll be there soon, mom." Abigail disconnected the call and looked up at her siblings. "It's almost six and mom wants us to come home now."

"Great. Just as we were getting to the good stuff." Brooklyn groaned, shutting the paper she was reading.

"You can take those home for a few days if you'd like." One of the librarians said as she passed, having overheard Brooklyn's complaint.

"Really?" Joshua was excited.

"Sure. As long as you look after them and return them before the end of the week. Take as many as you need." Abigail smiled at the librarian before gathering up the newspapers she'd been looking at and gently putting them into her bag. Then the four teens headed out to the car and made it home just before six.


End file.
